Forgotten Heroes
Real people whose extraordinary courage history nearly forgot — 16 profiles
Antoni Wronecki
Master Mason / Carpenter • Poland • 1898–1985
Hid 32 Jewish families, 87 people, beneath the floor of a Masonic lodge for 742 days using Masonic symbols as a shield against the Gestapo.…
Tags: Freemasonry,Masonic,Poland,Warsaw,rescue,hidden
Paul Borel
Grand Master of France • France • 1890–1945
Used the Masonic lodge network across France to save 10,000 Jewish lives. Died at Buchenwald in 1945.…
Tags: Freemasonry,Masonic,France,Grand Orient,Vichy,rescue,Buchenwald
Wilhelm Hosenfeld
Army Officer • Germany • 1895–1952
A German officer who saved Jewish lives from inside the Warsaw Ghetto. Died in a Soviet prison while those he saved fought for his release.…
Tags: Germany,Warsaw,righteous,compassion,Szpilman,rescue
Jan Karski
Home Army Courier • Poland • 1914–2000
Smuggled himself into the Warsaw Ghetto and Belzec death camp, then told Roosevelt everything -- nothing changed.…
Tags: Poland,Holocaust,Roosevelt,Warsaw Ghetto,courier
Irena Sendler
Social Worker • Poland • 1910–2008
Smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto -- more than Oskar Schindler saved.…
Tags: Poland,children,Warsaw Ghetto,Zegota
Chiune Sugihara
Consul General • Japan • 1900–1986
Saved approximately 6,000 Jewish refugees by issuing transit visas against the orders of his own government -- the Japanese Schindler.…
Tags: Japan,Lithuania,visas,holocaust
Mavis Batey
Codebreaker • Britain • 1921–2013
Broke the Italian and German Abwehr Enigma ciphers at age 19, contributing to naval victories and D-Day deception.…
Tags: Bletchley Park,codebreaking,Enigma,women,Britain
Nicholas Winton
Stockbroker • Britain • 1909–2015
Organized the rescue of 669 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia before the war, and kept it secret for 50 years.…
Tags: Britain,Czechoslovakia,children,Kindertransport
Irena Gut Opdyke
Nurse • Poland • 1922–2003
Hid 12 Jewish people in the basement of the SS headquarters while working as a nurse for the German military.…
Tags: Poland,SS headquarters,nurse,rescue
Violet Szabo
SOE Operative • Britain • 1921–1945
SOE agent who held off a German patrol alone while covering resistance fighters' escape, then survived torture and execution at Ravensbruck …
Tags: SOE,France,espionage,women,Ravensbruck
Hugh O'Flaherty
Monsignor • Ireland • 1895–1963
Rescued approximately 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Rome while the Gestapo hunted him.…
Tags: Ireland,Vatican,Rome,Gestapo,rescue
Raoul Wallenberg
Diplomat • Sweden • 1912–Disappeared 1947
Saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest by issuing protective passports and personally climbing onto deportation trains.…
Tags: Sweden,Hungary,Budapest,protective passports,Auschwitz